The Cultural Sociology of Reading: The Meanings of Reading and Books Across the World

Acknowledgments
About This Book
Praise for The Cultural Sociology of Reading
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
	References
Part I: The Project of a Cultural Sociology of Reading
	Chapter 2: Reading Matters: Toward a Cultural Sociology of Reading
		1 Introduction
		2 The Research
		3 The Neglect of Subjective Experience and Meaning-Making in the Sociology of Reading
			3.1 The “social practice” Approach to Reading
			3.2 The Bourdieusian Approach to Reading
			3.3 Reading in Historical and Institutional Contexts
		4 Toward a Cultural Sociology of Reading
			4.1 The Pleasures of Enchantment
			4.2 Self-Understanding
			4.3 Ethical Reflection and Social Bonds
			4.4 Self-Care
			4.5 Zooming in: Three Cases of Intensive Readers
				Margaret
				Alison
				Frances
		5 Conclusions
		References
Part II: Reading, Books and Texts as Iconic Experience
	Chapter 3: Why Do People Read Zines? Meaning, Materiality and Cultures of Reading
		1 Introduction
		2 Reading, Meaning and Materiality
		3 Our Project
		4 Zines Are DIY and Anti-mainstream
		5 Zines Are Intimate and Intense
		6 Discussion and Conclusion
		References
	Chapter 4: Between Self and Other: Anaïs Nin’s Transformative Erotics
		References
	Chapter 5: The Sociological Truth of Fiction: The Aesthetic Structure of a Novel and the Iconic Experience of Reading
		1 Introduction
		2 Aesthetic/Iconic Experience as a Source of Knowledge
		3 Aesthetic Structure as a Methodological Framework
		4 The Sociological Truth of Fiction: Implications and Prospects
			4.1 An Unexpected Journey Toward Establishing a New Alliance
			4.2 Autonomy and Agency: Let Literature Speak for Itself
			4.3 Literature as General Social Theory
		References
	Chapter 6: Book Love: Attachment to Books in the United Kingdom
		1 Introduction
		2 Advancing the Cultural Sociology of Reading Through Materiality
		3 The Book as Icon
		4 Data and Methods
		5 In the Presence of Books
			5.1 Books and the Realisation of Sacred Values
			5.2 The “Active Passion” of Reading
		6 Books as Sacred Objects and the Difficulties of Parting with Them
		7 Conclusions
		References
	Chapter 7: Easy to Handle and Travel with: Swahili Booklets and Transoceanic Reading Experiences in the Indian Ocean Littoral
		1 Introduction
			1.1 Islamic Reading Practices
		2 The Sacrality of Reading as a Social Practice
			2.1 Vidogo vidogo Formats for Specific Religious Communities and Markets
			2.2 A Brief Cultural Ecology of Booklets
			2.3 The Charity Book Market
		3 The Sacred Printed Object: The Prayer of the Treasure of the Throne
		4 “Cosmopolitan-and-Vernacular” Readers: A Transoceanic Cosmopolis “Niched” into Booklet Paratexts
			4.1 bi al-Luġa al-Swahiliyya (“In the Swahili Language”)
		5 Remarks in Lieu of a Conclusion: Portable Reading Practices before the Digital Age
		References
Part III: Literary Value and Cultural Intermediaries
	Chapter 8: Spatial Reading: Evaluative Frameworks and the Making of Literary Authority
		1 Introduction
		2 Single-Logic Concepts of Value: Literary Events Versus Readerly Uses
		3 Beyond a Single Logic: Taylor’s Theory of Strong and Weak Frameworks
		4 Strong Value as Public Feeling: Consecration, Canonization
		5 Spatial Reading
		6 Addictive Reading: An Eighteenth-Century Debate
		7 Multiple Spatialities: Scholar-Connoisseurs Versus Generalist Middlebrows
		8 Spatial Reading in the Civil Sphere: From the Byron Controversy to Handke’s Nobel Prize
		9 Conclusion
		References
	Chapter 9: Editor’s Love: Matching, Reading, and the Editorial Self-concept
		1 Introduction
		2 What’s in an Editorial Reading?
		3 What Does an Acquisition Editor Do?
		4 Literature Review
		5 The Editor as a Pragmatist Philosopher
		6 What’s in a Match?
		7 The Editor as a Stabilized Object
		8 Conclusion: Opening up the Black Box of Matching
		References
	Chapter 10: Reviewing Strategies and the Normalization of Uncertain Texts
		1 Introduction
		2 Theory and Literature Review
		3 Data and Methods
		4 Background: A Boom in Publishing
		5 Analysis and Results
			5.1 Accommodation: A Latin American Novel and Writer
			5.2 Accommodation: A Traditionalist Work of Art
			5.3 Rejection, Description, Accommodation, and Resignification: Toward Magical Realism
			5.4 Description and Rejection: A Humorous Novel
			5.5 Rejection: Negative Reviews as Reputation Enhancer
		6 Global Orchestration: The Normalization of OHYS’s Magical Realism
		7 Discussion and Conclusion
		References
	Chapter 11: Customer Reviews of “highbrow” Literature: A Comparative Reception Study of The Inheritance of Loss and The White Tiger
		1 Introduction
			1.1 Elite and Popular Styles of Cultural Consumption
			1.2 The Inheritance of Loss and The White Tiger
			1.3 Amazon Customer Reviews
		2 Methodology
			2.1 Data Collection and Cleaning
			2.2 Data Analysis
		3 Dataset
		4 Findings
		5 Conclusion and Scope for Further Work
		6 Technical Note
		References
	Chapter 12: A Self Enlarged by Fiction
		1 Introduction
		2 Reading for Models of Agency
		3 Reading for Easing Overwhelming Emotion
		4 Reading for More Capacious Worlds
		5 Conclusion
		References
Part IV: Bookshops, Libraries, and the Interplay of “High” and “Popular” Culture
	Chapter 13: Reading, Novels and the Ethics of Sociability: Taking Simmel to an Independent English Bookshop
		1 Introduction
		2 The Ethics of Sociability
			2.1 Sociability I: Self and Society
			2.2 Reading and Sociability I: Being with Others
			2.3 Sociability II: Self and Other
			2.4 Reading and Sociability II: Knowing Others
		3 The Bookshop: An Ethnography
			3.1 The Bookshop’s Modernist Ethos
			3.2 Modernist Selves
				Harriet’s Sociability of Difference
				Graham’s Missed Life as an Anthropologist
			3.3 Reading Sebald’s the Emigrants
		4 Conclusion: From Sociability and Reading to Modern Transcendence
		References
	Chapter 14: The Value of Books and Reading as Social Practices in Nineteenth-Century Chile: The Perspectives of Government and Citizens
		1 Introduction
		2 Popular Reading: Between the Library and the Penny Leaflets
			2.1 Popular Libraries
			2.2 The Penny Leaflets (hojas sueltas)
		3 Conclusion
		References
	Chapter 15: Between Avant-Garde and Kitsch: Intellectual Bookstores and Post-Mao China’s Reading Culture
		1 Introduction
		2 Individual Reading and the Bookstore: From Avant-Garde to Kitsch
		3 Guarding the Avant-Garde: The Intellectual Bookstore in Zhongguancun, Beijing
		4 Encroachment of the Kitsch: The Nanjing-Based “Libraire Avant-Garde”
		5 Conclusion: From “Between” to Beyond
		References
Part V: Modes of Reading, the State and the Public Sphere
	Chapter 16: The Politics of Happily-Ever-After: Romance Genre Fiction as Aesthetic Public Sphere
		1 Introduction
		2 A Cultural Sociology of Romance Reading
		3 Genre as Community
		4 Romance and the Aesthetic Public Sphere
		5 Data and Methods
		6 The Happily-Ever-After
		7 Entertainment and Engagement: Expectations for Reading and Community
		8 Envisioning Romancelandia as Aesthetic Public Sphere or Apolitical Space
		9 Reader Response to Red, White, and Royal Blue: A Case Study in Entertainment and Engagement
		10 “It’s Very Hopeful”: Romance Reading and the Real World
		11 Conclusion
		Appendix 1: Novels Included in Content Analysis
		Appendix 2: Interview Respondent Demographics
		Appendix 3: Romance Reader Demographics
		References
	Chapter 17: Clandestine Reading Practice in the Chinese Cultural Revolution
		1 Introduction
		2 Reading as Healing
		3 Reading for Safety Purposes
		4 Reading for Romantic Love
		5 Clandestine Reading Under Repressive Rule
		References
	Chapter 18: The Decline of Literary Reading and the Rise of the Literal Mind
		1 Introduction
		2 Literary Versus Literal Reading
		3 Readership and Literary Demise
		4 Market Bestsellers
		5 Regimes of Reading
		6 The Politics of the Literal Mind
		References
	Chapter 19: The Functions of Reading in Chinese Literature and Society
		1 Introduction
		2 Modes of Normative Reading in China
		3 Reading Acts as Interfaces in/to Chinese Fiction
		4 Conclusion
		References
Index